Lots of companies have looked for cost-saving measures wherever possible, which in this case has had the side effect of being great for the environment. Data centers are increasingly powered by renewable resources like solar, wind, geothermal, and hydroelectricity. Add to that some innovative cooling solutions and you have a new generation of data centers on the rise that are some of the greenest facilities in the world.

​2. Verne Global

You may not have heard of it if you don't deal with the high-performance computing world, but Verne Global is a big name in green computing.

The Verne Global data center in Keflavik, Iceland, is run completely on renewable energy in the form of geothermal and hydroelectric power, both of which are abundant in Iceland. What's more, Verne only uses 10% of the electric-producing capacity of its systems, so it can grow a lot before having to worry about going back on the grid.

​3. Facebook

Facebook has custom engineered every part of its data centers to save energy and water by installing water-saving appliances, using native plant species for landscaping, and engineering systems that need minimal cooling and power.

Every data center Facebook has built since 2013 has been run on 100% clean and renewable energy, and any future data centers have to meet that criteria as well.

​4. eBay

eBay has been working hard on green data centers for years. Two data centers in particular, Project Topaz and Project Mercury, take advantage of their environments to reduce energy consumption costs.

Project Topaz, located in South Jordan, UT, uses temperature monitors located in each rack to get precise measurements of where more cooling is needed. Instead of constantly pumping cold air into a massive data center, Topaz sends the cool air where it's most needed, lowering costs by 50% and earning a gold status from the US Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification system.

Project Mercury, on the other hand, is located in the hot Phoenix desert--not the most ideal place to build a massive, power-hungry data center. Despite that, Mercury has logged PUEs as low as 1.04--amazingly low. Mercury uses a water-cooling system to move hot air out of its racks: It pumps cold water through the server rooms and sends it off to be cooled. Water cooling can be much more efficient than air, and eBay has shown it with Mercury.

​5. Switch

Colocation company Switch operates several data centers, all of which it powers with renewable energy. In fact, it was the only company to score perfectly on Greenpeace's 2017 Clicking Clean Report by using 100% renewable energy in all its data centers.

Switch has taken steps like removing chemicals from its cooling systems, which increased water conservation by 400%, and building its own solar farms in Las Vegas that are able to completely power their data centers.

​6. Google

Google is well known for its environmental endeavors, which have gone on for over a decade. The company was carbon neutral in 2007, and in 2017 it reached 100% renewable status in its data centers.

Google uses evaporative cooling whenever possible, turns the temperature up in server rooms to cut down on cooling, builds custom high-efficiency servers to minimize energy requirements, and even turns its own machine learning tools to the task of increasing energy efficiency.

​7. Microsoft

Microsoft's data centers have been carbon neutral for some time, and the company continues to improve on its use of renewable energy to power them.

What's impressive about Microsoft's green data centers is its collaboration with the US Green Building Council to build a standard model for its future data centers that will ensure they're LEED certified as soon as they're constructed. The plans for Microsoft's energy-efficient data centers are going to be used as a standard for LEED certification, paving the way for more green data centers in years to come.

​9. Other World Computing

Other World Computing headquarters itself in Woodstock, IL, and boasts a 100% wind-powered facility that's heated and cooled by geothermal energy. Its facilities also have an onsite solar farm and robust recycling and water conservation programs, making OWC green not just in its data center, but from top to bottom.

The company holds a LEED platinum certification, the highest available.

​11. Equinix

Equinix operates several data centers around the world, all of which have found unique ways to stay green and minimize impact.

Its Toronto facility draws water from the depths of Lake Ontario to cool its data center and other buildings, Its Frankfurt, Germany, location gets 24% of its power from onsite hydrogen fuel cells, And its Amsterdam and Zurich data centers both use green roofs to reduce energy costs.

​12. Yahoo

Yahoo reduced energy costs by 40% by building its data centers to look like chicken coops. By using a long, narrow design with high roofs at its Niagara, NY, data center, Yahoo managed to get a lot of passive cooling bang for its buck.

​13. LinkedIn

LinkedIn's data center in Hillsboro, OR, has been able to hit a PUE score of 1.06, making it incredibly energy efficient. It operates 100% on renewable energy and uses rear-door chilling units to cool servers for minimal cost.

Rear-door chilling is a popular choice for data centers because it captures hot air near server exhaust fans and never lets that escape into the room. This lowers overall cooling costs and keeps machines operating efficiently without needing to constantly pump cold air at them.

​14. Alibaba

Alibaba's first green data center, located in Hangzhou, used cool lake water to control the temperature in its server rooms. Alibaba also built a data center in the northern province of Hebei, taking advantage of cool air to control the temperature in its Alibaba Cloud North data center for free.

The company has plans to use an immersive liquid cooling system of its own design in a future data center. Immersive cooling is one of the most effective and environmentally friendly ways to keep computer hardware cold and can achieve PUE scores of 1.0, which is typically impossible for a traditional data center.

​15. LG

Korean electronics company LG's Busan data center uses a built-up exterior air conditioning system to control the temperature of its servers. The system uses outside air to cool and recirculate warm air from the data center, earning it a Brill Efficiency Award thanks to the eight months of free cooling the system provides.

Winning the Brill award LG said, puts it in the top 0.1% of data centers in the world.

​16. Lefdal Mine Data Center

If you need to keep something cool, what better place to put it than deep underground? The Lefdal Mine Data Center is just the place, and by converting an abandoned mine in Norway into a (literally) cavernous data center, Lefdal has managed an impressive 1.15 PUE.

The Lefdal mine uses water from a nearby fjord to keep itself cool and generate power, didn't need to build a new structure to house its computers, has zero CO2 emissions, and has a net water usage of zero.

The mine itself is huge, giving it plenty of room to expand for minimal costs and environmental impact.

​18. Green House Data

Green House Data's Cheyenne, WY, data center is, Green House said, 75% more efficient than the national average. It has a PUE score of 1.14, uses passive cooling, and its location was chosen due to the geographic safety of the region, meaning less costs for disaster recovery will be necessary in the long run.

​20. Iron Mountain

Iron Mountain operates several data centers throughout the US, but all of them are green thanks to the Ringer Hill, PA, wind farm Iron Mountain partnered with.

The energy output from the wind farms is enough to power Iron Mountain's data centers in three states. Iron Mountain also invests in solar energy and has invested in several green energy projects in the US and Canada with the aim to make its data centers green as they continue to expand.

Lots of companies have looked for cost-saving measures wherever possible, which in this case has had the side effect of being great for the environment. Data centers are increasingly powered by renewable resources like solar, wind, geothermal, and hydroelectricity. Add to that some innovative cooling solutions and you have a new generation of data centers on the rise that are some of the greenest facilities in the world.